I want to share the experience of a small block of units (less than 25) where the Owners’ Corporation is taking an owner to NCAT for unauthorised and excessively noisy floorboards.
This owner was made well aware of the need to obtain a bylaw and of prior research by other owners showing how near impossible it is to match the quiet of carpet over carpet underlay. He still went ahead, possibly hoping nothing much would happen. The owner below is now besides himself from the noise that come through (confirmed by the acoustics reports).
After nearly two years of notices to comply, Fair Trading mediation and NCAT preliminary hearings, we are not yet at a point where orders can be expected in the OC’s favour. We had a lawyer right up to a few weeks ago but when mid-way in the process he announced a cost double his original estimate, and therefore exceeding our budget (and taking us only to the first NCAT hearing), we pulled the plug and decided to take it to NCAT ourselves. The lawyer had done a good job so far, by the way, but in a small strata, there is very little leeway for special levies to cover such costs. In addition to legal costs, we paid for two acoustics reports.
The owner/respondent is also spending money on a lawyer and had to get an acoustics report, so his floorboards are costing him quite a bit more than he budgeted. But then he had plenty of opportunities to prevent that. However his pride and sense of entitlement are highly intertwined in the decision to have floorboards and he won’t relent even if NCAT finds in the OC’s favour and makes orders to remove the floorboards and alternatively to give OC the right to remove them (and replace them with carpet and underlay). In which case forceful action will be required and I don’t even want to think about how to put this into practice.
Based on costs to date, I estimate that a strata that does not have ca. $40,000 to put towards a case should think long and hard about taking it past a certain stage. This would cover lawyers’ costs and acoustics reports. For those who want to bypass the services of a lawyer, the work, time, dedication, research necessary will significantly exhaust the few people interested enough in “doing something”. Most of those volunteers won’t have the skills, health, time, reliability or stamina to be there all the way.
This first-hand experience has brought it home to me that the process exists, yes, but it is only viable for stratas of a decent size that can afford the cost and/or have access to substantial volunteer labour to take the case all the way. I’d be interested in hearing from other small stratas. I also would like to know how much effort is the OC legally obliged to make to ensure the bylaws are complied with.